It is known to the art to provide highly complicated lock devices for rooms, buildings, and objects such as automobiles, which are secured by means of locked doors, to prevent unauthorized access or unauthorized actions, such as the unauthorized removal of an automobile. The conventional cylinder tumbler locks which are commonly used as these lock devices and which can be adjusted up to as high as 5000 lock combinations, would appear to be an effective device for these purposes. However, experience teaches otherwise, even when alarm systems are provided separately from the lock and key arrangements for the sake of further protecting enclosed areas or objects such as automobiles. Even in very complicated lock systems using conventional cylinder tumbler locks, it is not necessary to have an original key in order to make a duplicate key, and thus defeat the purpose of the lock system.
A primary reason for the possibility of duplicating the key, for even a very complicated cylinder tumbler lock, exists in the fact that each cylinder tumbler lock already has the information code for the mechanical closures which solely enables the lock to be opened, readily available in mechanical form. Thus, for example, a deformable element can be inserted into the cylinder tumbler lock to determine the pin configuration therein. Then an appropriate duplicate key can be created on the basis of this information, either immediately or at a a later time, so that an object such as an automobile can be taken into possession by one apparently authorized to do so, or closed buildings or rooms can be entered without difficulty.
In the above referenced U.S. patent application Ser. No. 963,054, to which this application represents a supplement, an apparatus for actuating a locking device, security system and the like is described for preventing unauthorized access to protected areas, and/or unauthorized removal of protective objects and/or simultaneous arming and disarming of alarm systems. The apparatus includes an actuator element such as a key, and a complementary element such as a lock responding thereto, which enables authorized actions. The actuator element contains at least one track of coded information which is carried in a non-mechanical manner. A sensor, which is disposed in the complementary element, scans the code track in a non-mechanical manner to retrieve the coded information and delivers it to a comparator circuit which compares the information retrieved from the actuator element with information stored in a memory (PROM) and generates an enabling signal to operate the locking device, security device, and the like. Thus, in this device, the sole accurate lock combination permitting opening is no longer present in a mechanical or physical form, and also is not normally stored in a memory in the immediate vicinity of the lock, so that unauthorized actions are practically impossible unless force is used. Furthermore, the number of possible lock combinations which may be used in this device is higher by several orders of magnitude than the number of possible lock combinations which can be used in cylinder tumbler locks, so that ascertaining the correct combination empirically is practically impossible.
A repetition of the contents of the above referenced U.S. patent application Ser. No. 963,054, to which this invention expressly represents a supplement, is not included herein for the sake of limiting the length of this application. It will be understood, however, that the entire content of the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 963,054 should be considered as already known in this application, and is incorporated herein by reference.
In the apparatus disclosed in the above referenced U.S. patent application Ser. No. 963,054, the data track of the actuator element is preferably a series of transparent and opaque fields which are moved between a source of infra-red radiation, such as suitable light emitting diodes, and infra-red radiation sensors disposed within the complementary element during insertion of the actuator element. The infra-red sensors detect the distribution of the transparent and opaque fields and generate a corresponding pulsed electrical signal. In these opto-electric devices and evaluation circuits, the use of light beams, even in the invisible infra-red range, could prove to be very difficult for the purpose of evaluation, because the effects of soiling low signal amplitudes and correspondingly complicated and sophisticated discrimination, as well as a certain dependency on the relative motion between the actuator element and the infra-red sensor, require suitable compensatory measures and sophisticated evaluation logic means.
Thus, there is a need, in security systems such as described in the above referenced U.S. patent application Ser. No. 963,054, for less expensive, or dependable information track-scanning and evaluation devices, which do not depend on the relative speed between the actuator element and the sensor.